The Flying Dreams

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

That night, I couldn't sleep at all. I wished to get up from the bed and roam about the small balcony, but the cold weather didn't allow me to even sit up and drop the warmness of my blanket, so instead, I decided to stare at the ceiling and listen to the car honks coming from the window. It was a lot to wrap my head around and no matter how much I tried to close my eyes and by some miracle— fall asleep, Shifa's face kept smiling at me and then my mother's. Ummy's voice in my head seemed to be amplified and it suffocated me as if trying to grip my neck and cut my breath short. For a horrible minute I thought about her finding out and it made me want to jump out of the small window. I knew it was wrong, a sin and I so hated myself for not stopping my thoughts from wandering, swaying like a free balloon in the sky. They freely flew and paused only on one person, which was not my fiancé. At last, when I felt I could no longer stay inside the blankets and the heavy sweat on my forehead began to dry, the coolness of it became too hard to bear, I sat up and leaned my back against the cold wall. I gave in to the temptation and picked up my phone. I knew what I wanted to search but my fingers didn't dare to move for a good minute. My heart pounded louder in my ears than it had ever before. I raised my index finger and gave up in the middle of touching my phone. With a light inhale, I grabbed my shawl from the bedstand and realized I couldn't do this without a cup of tea. If I needed to find the little validation, I had to work for it.

The kitchen light was left on, probably by a forgetful Shifa, who didn't think about saving the electricity at all. The floor was cold beneath my bare feet, but I still made up my way to the counter and turned on the gas before putting the pot on it and poured a cup of milk into the empty pot. As I waited for it to boil, my eyes stopped on the closed door of Shifa's room. Dim orange light peered through the small peephole, and I wondered if Shifa feared darkness or just liked it. My tea got ready within a few minutes, and I immediately paddled back to my assigned room, closed the door and got back inside the blankets. It took a good minute for my feet to warm up but once they did, I picked up my steaming hot cup from the bed table and sipped a bit. The sweet taste of ginger and green cardamom almost made me cry with comfort. It was after I had taken a few more sips of my personal heaven did I went for my phone again. The sight of a white kitten inside a wood wrought basket welcomed me upon the unlocking of the device—Wahab had set the wallpaper and I never thought about changing it. I didn't even like kittens.

Taking a deep breath in, I held the phone in my right hand and the teacup in my left. I typed the question on Google – what does Islam say about homosexuality? And a list of similar searches made me ponder on the fact—I certainly wasn't alone. As selfish as it sounded, I was glad that more than a hundred strangers out there go through the same thing, think about the same thing and this strengthened my courage and will to find out what other people had to say about the matter. I sipped the hot drink and waited for the server to load. The Quora page hadn't even loaded completely, and I backed out and cleared my search history. No, I thought, I wasn't that. I just liked one girl but then again, liking another girl was called homosexuality. Or perhaps it didn't. I stared at my phone and heard my heartbeat in my ears. It sounded so wrong, the word, homosexual. Almost like abuse. Was I that? No. I had never liked another girl before Shifa. I would have definitely noticed, I mean, I studied in an all-girls school. My favourite actor was Imran Hashmi, though if someone was to ask, it was Shahrukh Khan and I enjoyed watching Fifty Shades of Grey with Zoya, inside my room and sharing her earbuds, with our hearts thumping louder than the younger cousins outside the home, playing and screaming. How could I be a... lesbian?

Frustrated with my failed attempt to do something, I typed another series of words and waited. Am I a lesbian? The search page flooded with quizzes and on top was a Buzzfeed quiz. It seemed reliable and I was familiar with the site. So, I clicked on the link and as if the phone had guessed my intention to press back again, the page took a maximum of a second to load—it didn't want me to be a coward. If only the internet stayed with me like this when I did research work for my classes. I took another sip of tea and read the question, a little nervously but mostly anticipating. There were twenty- three questions, including two scenario ones. My tea was finished and the answer on the phone stared at me blankly. Of course, of course. I didn't even know what I had expected. I knew myself and I had never found myself admiring any girl. Not the way I admire Shifa, no. Sorry, but you don't have enough colours inside you. I didn't stop staring, hoping that whoever designed the quiz would sense it and drown in shame. I had enough colours inside me, thank you very much.

But that is clear though—I was not a lesbian. I thought, Shifa might be and for a tiny second wanted to see her result. The car honking had declined a bit and I saw the time. 2:36. That was bad. I had early classes and I didn't want to be sleeping through a live lecture on the functions of the ovary. I dumped the teacup on the side table and locked my phone, not before setting up a dozen alarms with the intervals of five minutes. That was sure to wake me up.

When I woke up, my alarm was still going off. The beautiful sound of birds chirping sounded irritating to my ears, and I reached out a hand to press the dismiss button. My head didn't hurt, though, my eyes felt tired and droopy. Scooting myself up, I leaned my back against the headboard of the bed and stretched my arms. I had plenty of time to get ready, thanks to my alarm. There were some sounds coming from the kitchen and if I could widen my eyes in surprise, I would have but my eyelids were still hanging on the exhaustion of lack of sleep. Shifa was up? At 5:29? That made me lose the tiredness and got up from the bed. The coldness of the room swept inside my skin, and I shivered, quickly grabbing my shawl and wrapping myself in it. Opening the door and witnessing Shifa, in a blue hoodie and a grey woollen pyjama with messed up hair did something to my sanity and it was too early to feel this giddy. I hated it. She must have sensed me practically gawking at her and passed a small smile with a little, awkward wave of her free hand.

She provided me with an explanation without me even opening my mouth, "I got hungry all of a sudden and thought you must have something left from last night dinner", she shrugged, and my heart could have melted right there, a funny pout formed on her lips, and she turned to look at me, "But there is nothing in the fridge."

"I didn't cook anything last night." And now I wanted to hit myself on the head for not doing it.

Shifa seemed uncomfortable and I saw her shifting her weight on the other leg. Was it because of last night? Did she even remember? She was drunk and said nonsense to me. A huge part of me didn't want her to remember what she proposed and what I confessed but just a tiny, selfish and rebellious part of me wished her words to be true and sober at heart. I wished her to mean what she asked and stick to it. I wished to watch movies with her and never really got the plot because of her constant inference. I wished... I wished so many things. From both, her and me.

"Shifa-,"

"Adia-,"

Okay, that was awkward, and we both knew it. Shifa smiled and motioned me to talk first but I shook my head, and I could hear her sigh from the distance.

"Bring your friends today."

"Why?"

Shifa raised her brows, "To watch a movie, why else?"

I couldn't say no, "Okay."